


Trouble

by ivyness



Series: AU Yeah August 2018 [26]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - BFF Swap, Friend Swap, Gen, au yeah august
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyness/pseuds/ivyness
Summary: Steve and Clint have been childhood best friends. Bucky and Natasha are as close to friends as they can get.





	Trouble

Steve’s ma didn’t trust the Barton’s family. She’d warned Steve to steer clear of their alcoholic mess of a father and kept a distrustful eye on the older one whenever he was near. Clint Barton, Steve’s best friend, was the youngest son, and fit as a fiddle despite being even strawnier than Steve. 

Although she loved Clint like a son, she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. Too many times, she had come home after a long shift to find them a scraped up, blackened eye’d mess and even though her Stevie sought out trouble like a bloodhound, Clint simply had a way of attracting the worst kind of trouble. 

It wasn’t their fault, it was just the way her boys were. Still, she worried and she wished she could have sheltered them for a lot longer than she was able. If she had still been alive, she could have kept her boys from enlisting in the damn war.

*******

When Clint fell, Peggy knew something had broken in Steve. He had a haunted, unhinged look in his eye that worried her but she had a war to win and believed that they’d have more time.

When Steve plunged the plane into the Arctic, Peggy knew he fell not only to save New York, but also as penance for losing Clint. The morons. She refused to curse or cry until long after the war was won and SHIELD was founded. But even long after she had finished mourning, Peggy knew exactly why she never allowed SHIELD to assign brothers together.

*******

Natalia Romanoff was the most skilled assassin Madame B. had ever trained. The young girl had the potential to be the next Black Widow, if only she could harden that bleeding heart of hers.

When the Winter Soldier was brought to the Red Room, Madame B. had the girls put through their paces. It would be an honor, she told them, to be chosen to train with him and she made sure to put Natalia front and center.

A week later, drowning in a pool of her own blood, she still could not regret her decision. Madame B. had created the most dangerous assassin the world would ever see; clever enough to break even the Winter Soldier’s programming and strong enough to keep him for herself. Hydra would get them back. Hydra always got back what was theirs.

Madame B. smiled down the barrel of the gun pressed against her head. The Red Room didn’t tolerate failure, even from it’s trainers.

*******

Phil Coulson had his briefing: The Black Widow and the Winter Soldier were not friends; they simply had a volatile and explosion-inducing alliance. They were assassins and mercenaries and anything that anyone was paying them to be. They had few allies and many enemies.

Phil Coulson had his own observations: Natasha and Bucky were close. They moved like they knew exactly where the other was, like they had grown up fighting together. Bucky made Natasha tea when she was cranky and Natasha sometimes graced Bucky with a real smile. And they wanted out; the out that Phil could offer them, otherwise they never would have let Phil see them.

SHIELD had been after these two for nearly a decade but Phil knew an opportunity when one was dangled right in front of his face. He offered them a deal. Natasha smirked and patted him on the cheek, Bucky grunted and didn’t bother looking at him. Phil felt like he had just narrowly missed stepping on a landmine and grinned. These two were going to be a terror.

*******

They found Steve first. Buried under hundreds of layers of ice and grief; a man out of time and out of place. 

Natasha couldn’t stop staring at Captain America’s abs and Bucky couldn’t help sneak a few stealthy glances himself. From the way Nat smirked at him, Bucky knew she noticed. He glared and debated making Nat’s tea with only one sugar instead of her mandatory five, and then decided that he liked having his dick attached to his body, thanks but no thanks.

Captain America was an ass. More specifically, Steve Rogers was an asshole with a guilt complex visible from space, anger management issues a mile wide, and stubborn like a donkey. Bucky figured Captain America was just a bunch of government propaganda bull pocky.

And then Bucky was whammied. More specifically, Loki, magical, sparkly scepter mind whammied. Bucky could deal with a lot of things but killing other SHIELD agents and nearly killing Nat was not one of them. 

Steve could have sidelined him, Captain America should have put him in chains. Instead, Steve looked at Bucky and he asked, and being a not-quite an idiot, Steve double checked with Nat, and then he shook his hand and asked Bucky to watch their sixes.

Bucky didn’t cry but Nat still slipped her hand in his and held on tight as he shook.

*******

They found Clint next. Or more specifically, Hawkeye found them.

As the helicarrier fell apart around them, metal groaning as they plummeted towards the river below, Steve shouted and begged and hoped that Clint would recognize him and give Steve a second chance to save him.

The water hit like a bullet to the head, overwhelming and all consuming and as freezing as the Arctic ice. 

Steve woke to a pounding headache and a chill down to the marrow of his bones. Muddy, bloody footprints and a broken purple arrow lay next to him. 

Bucky was the one who found him. Wrapped him up tight and warm and hidden while Natasha took the brunt of the public inquiry. Never again, Steve promised himself. He would find Clint and he would bring him back, and he would never lose anyone else, ever again.

*******

Natasha was the one who finally found him. He hadn’t been doing all that good of a job at staying hidden. A man with a bow, deadly good aim, and a penchant from purple tended to stand out.

She found him buying plums in a market in Bucharest and tracked him back to a flat littered with dirty dishes and takeout boxes and a dog eating leftover pizza. Clint didn’t even bother trying to shoot her, just offered her some of the dog’s pizza as he slung a ratty rucksack over his shoulder, and asked her for directions to the Smithsonian. 

The guy was a mess and Natasha couldn’t help the tiny, internal giggle. 

Bucky yelled at her and threatened maimings and teas without sugar but he promised to maintain his distance and keep Steve out of the loop.

For the next three weeks, Natasha and Clint went roadtripping. They visited every Captain America and Howling Commandos memorial, museum and heritage site, and in the evenings they’d gorge themselves on fast food and terrible Captain America movies, and Natasha would watch with awe and a bit of envy as Clint slowly took his broken pieces and put himself back together.

*******

Some days, Hawkeye didn’t feel much like Clint. 

Steve would sometimes look at him, eyes haunted with grief and loss, and Clint would smile and laugh, big and throaty, slap him on the back, and reach up on tip toes to tussle his shiny, blonde head, cursing Steve for his height. Sometimes the smile even reached his eyes, sometimes Clint could even convince himself.

And on the days when everything was too much, too fast and Clint would find himself crawling into the rafters and yelling down at Steve, and Steve would shout right back with fists held rigidly at his side. On those days, Natasha would silently slip her hand into Steve’s and Steve, still too polite for his own good, would be forced to follow her out the room. And Clint would huff and growl and feel like he was about to crawl out of his own skin until Bucky climbed up the rafters with a giant bag of M&Ms, and they’d throw them back and forth at each other with pin prick precision, and fling them at anyone who thought it’d be a good idea to interrupt.

Clint and Steve had been best friends since long before the war and seventy years later they were still the worst kind of trouble magnets. Clint honestly wasn’t sure how either of them had survived for so long. But at least now they had Natasha and Bucky to watch their sixes.


End file.
